


It's his laughter that keeps you alive.

by PaleAssassin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, I really don't know any other tags, John is mentioned, Seasons 1 through 8 are all in this, a dash of self-hatred, a drop of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 10:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaleAssassin/pseuds/PaleAssassin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re driving down a gravel road as fast as you can. The wind whips through the open windows of the car your dad bought you, the radio is turned up as loud as it can go, and yet you can still hear your brother’s laughter. It’s high and clear, like a church bell on Sunday morning, and it’s just as sacred to you as that sound is to the congregation. You laugh with him, because you love him, even if you don’t say that. You laugh because he’s here with you, and he loves you, and you’re both so alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's his laughter that keeps you alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm baaaaaaaaack. I never really left, just haven't been writing all that much. I have another strange POV story for you, this one from Dean's POV. Not quite sure where this came from, but oh well. I'm also posting this on my tumblr, so no one is stealing anyone's work. Unless the name "PaleAssassin" isn't the name on the post. Then it's stolen. P.S. I DON'T OWN ANYTHING. OTHERWISE EVERYTHING WOULD BE MUCH HAPPIER. Enjoy!

You’re driving down a gravel road as fast as you can. The wind whips through the open windows of the car your dad bought you, the radio is turned up as loud as it can go, and yet you can still hear your brother’s laughter. It’s high and clear, like a church bell on Sunday morning, and it’s just as sacred to you as that sound is to the congregation. You laugh with him, because you love him, even if you don’t say that. You laugh because he’s here with you, and he loves you, and you’re both so alive.

He’s so innocent, sitting in the seat next to you, his long brown hair whipping back in the wind. His eyes are wide open and screaming with joy, and for a moment, you can’t take your eyes off of him. You wonder if he’ll ever change, if you’ll still be able to hear that laughter. Because that laughter is what keeps you alive.

 

Three years later, you stand outside of the motel room your dad has rented for you and your little brother, listening to your dad and brother scream at each other. They don’t know you came home early, and they won’t. You can’t stand listening to them yell at each other, listen as they tear into each other like rabid animals. You want them to stop, but they never will.

You almost leave, up until you hear your dad yell “If you walk out that door, don’t you _ever_ come back.” You freeze, breath held like you’re being forced under water. You hope, almost pray, that either your dad takes it back or your brother stays where he is. Your hopes are shattered when your brother slams through the door two minutes later, tears streaming down his young face and a fresh bruise on his jaw.

He almost brushes past you, but you reach out and take his arm before he can. He turns to you, eyes on fire, and you see your dad’s rage and determination in his eyes. You know there’s no use in begging for him to stay. You pat his shoulder, because the men of your family don’t do hugs, and tell him to keep in touch. Some of the rage leaves his eyes, and he nods. This will be the last time you’ll see your brother in four years.

 

A month after your brother’s girlfriend burns on the ceiling of the place they called home, you reach over and ruffle your brother’s hair. It’s longer than it was when he left you for a normal life, and you feel sad that you missed such an important part of his life. He brushes your hand away with a disgruntled look. You haven’t heard that laughter in so long it feels like a needle is pressed against your heart, scraping the surface with every beat. You hope you can get him to laugh soon, because it’s that laughter that keeps you alive.

 

Five weeks after your dad dies on the floor of a hospital room, you press a salad into your brother’s hands. He hasn’t been eating much since the hospital, and you’re worried. You’re even more worried about what your dad told you before collapsing. “Save your brother, or else one day, you might have to kill him.” There was no way in hell you’d kill your little brother, but the thought leaves an ugly scar on your heart, one that might never heal.

If- no- _when_ you finally tell your brother what your father said, you want to make sure he knows you’d never hurt him. He’s skittish, wondering just what the Yellow-Eyed Demon has in store for him. You want to make sure he knows how much you love him, even if you don’t say the words aloud. It’s been years since you last heard that laughter, and you think that maybe, your mother and father weren’t the only things the demon took from you.

 

Two days after your brother dies in your arms, you stare at his dead body like he’s just asleep. You think you might be going crazy, but that’s alright. Because your baby brother, the one you carried out of a burning house twice, the boy you raised as your own, is lying on a dirty bed, knife wound in the back. He looks like he’s sleeping, you think as you raise the bottle of whiskey to your lips. He looks like he’s going to wake up any minute and tell you to stop drinking, tell you to put the damn bottle down. But he won’t, because he’s dead, and it’s all your fault.

When it hits you, you almost cry. You’ll never get to hear him laugh again. Never get to see him smile, never get to have him whack your shoulder when you do something stupid, never hear the “Jerk” that’s the answer to your “Bitch”. Never get to see him grow old and quit hunting, sit in an old armchair with a book of lore out, yelling into a phone to some stupid rookie who doesn’t know the difference between a spirit and a poltergeist. But mostly, you’re stuck on the fact that you’ll never hear that laughter again. Because it was that laughter that kept you alive.

So when you sell your soul for his life, you hope you can get him to laugh once before the contract is up. Because it was always that laughter that kept you alive, and maybe it’ll keep you safe when hellfire burns your skin.

 

When you finally hear that laughter again, there’s only six days until your deal is due. It shocks you at first, because your brother has been so somber in the shadow of the deal, you gave up hope that you’d hear him laugh again. But he does laugh. He laughs at you, because you made some stupid joke to a woman, and she turned you down. It’s just like you remember it being, high and clear, full of life and happiness. You could cry, finally hearing it again, but you don’t because that’s what the men in your family do.

Six days later, when you’re bleeding out in your brothers arms, and you hear demons chanting in your ear, you remember that laughter, and you are not afraid.

 

After you come back from Hell, after your brother releases the devil from his prison and is groveling at your feet for forgiveness, you forget about his laughter. Your brother isn’t innocent anymore, not after drinking demon blood, not after dooming the world. For a moment, you think he’s not even your brother anymore. He’s changed since you were gone, stuck in Hell with only the memory of his laughter to hold onto. For a moment, you believe he’s the thing your dad warned you about, the thing you’d have to kill. You dismiss this thought, though, and dive headfirst into saving the world.

 

Your brother jumps into a cage of flesh and pain, dragging down two archangels with him. You think you should be proud, but all you can feel is pain. You sit on the ground, next to where he fell, for what feels like an eternity. He’s gone, for good, and all you feel is regret. Your little brother saved the word, your little brother defeated two archangels, and he’s left to rot with them as a reward. You think, he’s a real hero. Real heroes don’t get their happy endings. They die bloody, and that’ what your little brother will do.

The last thing you regret, on a long list of regrets, is how you’ll never hear him laugh again. You remember thinking this back before you fell into Hell, but this time, you know it’s permanent. Because people don’t just fly out of a locked cage when they want to, and your brother is never coming back.

Later, when you’re drowning yourself in alcohol and hoping it’ll poison you, you remember a little boy with floppy, brown hair, riding shotgun with the windows rolled down and the radio cranked up. You remember all the strange details, down to the clothes you were wearing and the dimples that showed up when the little boy smiled, but you can’t, for the life of you, remember his laughter. After that, you give up drinking, because it makes you remember everything but what you want to remember.

 

The thing that says it’s your brother doesn’t laugh like your brother does. It stares, empty, when you joke, and laughs mechanically at appropriate times. You think, if you can’t be him, don’t laugh. Because it was that laughter that kept you alive, and you’re not sure why you’re living right now, because you think you’ll never hear that laughter again.

 

When the devil hides away in your brother’s head, you almost regret getting him back. Because your little brother won’t say it, but he’s scared of what’s happening, and you think he’ll never get better. He smiles more, though, and laughs at your jokes, but it isn’t the laughter you want. This laughter is hollow, only there to provide the backtrack to a comedy sketch. You wonder if you’ll ever hear the laughter that you want again, because at this point, it’s the only thing you want.

It takes a while, a bit of extra encouragement, but you do hear that laughter again. It takes you off guard, like it has the past few times, but this time, you’re the one who made him laugh like that. You won’t remember what you did, years later, but you will remember his laughter. You’ll remember the dimples that showed up when he laughed, the light in his eyes that you hadn’t seen in so long. You’ll remember hearing him say, “Shut up, jerk.” And you’ll remember replying “Bitch,” because that’s what you to do. You’ll remember his laughter, and no matter what, you won’t be afraid.

 

The memory of his laughter keeps you alive in Purgatory. When things got rough, when you thought you really wouldn’t make it out, his face would pop into your mind, accompanied by the sound of his laughter. It’s still high and clear, and it cuts through your mind like a blade whistling through open air. It keeps you alive, just like it always has, and you hope you find a way out soon, so you can hear that laughter in person.

 

After you get back, you forget about your brother’s laughter again. He didn’t search for you, didn’t even _try_ , left your memory for a girl with dark hair and a bitchy attitude. You hate him, just a little bit, because he never even thought to get you out. His laughter becomes your poison, and you hate him for the things he didn’t do.

It isn’t until he starts the trials that you realize how much you missed _him_ , not just his laughter. He stares at you like you’ll disappear again, and you realize that he’s been alone this past year. It doesn’t matter that he had a girl and a dog, because he didn’t have his family. And family is what your brother always wanted.

When you find out he’s been coughing up blood, you worry. You worry that the trials will kill him. You curse God for beating down his most loyal believer. You curse yourself for not seeing it before, for not doing the trials yourself. You sit and you pine and you worry, because he’s your little brother, and you would do anything for him.

That’s when it hits you. All this time, you thought it was his laughter, his clear, joyous laughter, that kept you alive. All this time, you were thinking it was a piece of him that kept you alive. When it hits you, you almost laugh. It’s _him_ that keeps you alive. Your little brother, your pain in the ass little brother, with too-long hair and a smile like the sun and his too big brains, he’s what keeps you alive.  You realize that you both can do this, you both can close the Gates of Hell, because you’re what keeps each other alive. You both are the anchor that keeps the other’s feet on the ground. You realize, and laugh, because all this time, you were holding on to every piece of your brother, not just his laughter.

You laugh because he’s what keeps you alive.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't finished this yet, so I don't know how it ends, but hopefully, it ends well. I liked the beginning, but endings are hard. As always, I appreciate comments and creative criticism.


End file.
